I thought I would be married by now. As a kid, I mean, that's what I thought. If you had told me that my little brother would be getting married before I'd ever dated, and that even he would be nearing 28 by the time this happened.... Well, that just wasn't possible. Because you grew up, started dating, got married, had kids. That is how life worked.
Except not really. Really, life worked (works) like this: God sets the schedule, not me. God sets the agenda.
And God let me fall on my face where my original agenda was concerned (a lot). He let me try out different angles and adjust my paradigm based on past experience and attempt to work out a nice safe scientific theory that covered all the variables and eliminated all potential problems. Then he knocked that one over and let me start again. And again. And again.
He let this happen until I was thoroughly content with being unmarried forever, and then he brought my future sister-in-law into the picture and showed me how big of a liar I can be, even to myself. He let me see contentment in all circumstances wasn't about feeling perfectly fulfilled in all circumstances. He let me think about where I expected that perfect fulfillment to come from, anyway, and when.
He let me ponder the myriad ways other people could let me down, the myriad ways I could let myself and others down, and led me into pondering why I was so concerned about the harm any of us could do to each other, why I was clinging to my dragon scale armor when he gave me his own and sized it to fit me (or perhaps me to fit it).
He let me make my lists, back in the college days, of what I was looking for in a guy (how tall/smart/funny/etc. he should be), so I could see from here how thoroughly worthless most of the list was, how impossible it is for a human to fill my needs, how harmful to myself and others to lean on them so hard.
He let me rush in like a fool so I would appreciate the virtue and wisdom of being still, of waiting.
He made "I give up" and "I don't know" important and precious sayings in my life, inasmuch as they relate to giving up the hurtful things and not presuming to know all things.
For instance, I don't know whether or not I'll ever be married. But I give up on making marital status an indication of extra-special blessing I haven't earned yet, and also on making it something that I can't even think about until I've reached some mystical goal point in my spiritual life.
Am I free of all my fears about commitment? No. Am I going to start introducing myself to every unattached male I see? No. Am I attracted to the idea of marriage?
If it looks like this, I am.
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